Jordan Peterson is not doing well physically, and his daughter has announced that the cause is A, the cause is B, or maybe even spiritual warfare. Then predictably, she says "Boy is sure looks like spiritual warfare," because that's how people introduce the topic. As a 70s Jesus Person, and early evangelical culture observer from the 80s, I have heard lots of people claim that their troubles come from spiritual warfare. I came to reflexively reject that, even though I do believe in spiritual warfare. No, your parachurch ministry is going down because you have increasingly become grandiose and see yourself as the center of Last Days preaching. No, you are being attacked because you have not exercised control over your staff (or yourself), and accusations of infidelity and even abuse are hitting the news. You have promoted your idiot wife/children into positions of authority. You are not exempt from the law of averages on trials and tribulations, dude. Or more generally People are calling you a loon because you are, in fact, a loon. I liked Peterson's first book, whatever that was, for its inspirational quality for young men not to feel beaten down but to display confidence and proudly do the little, character-building things brick-by-brick.
But I was uncomfortable with his Jungianism, which I believe is an attractive set of ideas that somehow always leads people away from the faith into a mystic, symbolic interpretation of life. I think it is good as a dessert, but not as a meal. It is nutritional only by accident.
So he is a food faddist and increasingly alt-health, but he is failing because of...spiritual warfare. I will be a bit snarky here and say that perhaps Satan would be more likely to go after an actual Christian, rather than someone who believes the Bible is remarkably fascinating and unfairly criticised but has a host of symbolic lessons to teach us. I wish him well despite my disagreement with him. I think I have mentioned him only twice here, both times positively but with some reservations.
6 comments:
If he was saying "spiritual warfare" himself I'd be very surprised.
The devil might find it expedient to put obstacles in the path of someone coming to Christ in the first place. I don't know if that qualifies as "spiritual warfare" the way people usually think of it (when they do).
His daughter was
Yes, exactly. I don't hear people blame spiritual warfare much, but what I have heard has tended to be describing other people's problems. I'm a bit too familiar with my own failings to blame anything in particular on a special attack by the devil.
Douglas2 had a long comment that has not shown up here. It is worth some consideration and I will try to figure out what has happened.
I have likewise had universally bad experiences with people claiming that they were going to "put on the whole Armor of God," with appropriate Biblical citations. Every one of them I've known has turned out to be guilty of something shameful. That does not prove that every such case always will be; nor do I mean it to imply that no one should take comfort in those verses. However, so far it's been a reliable marker of scoundrels trying to hide something behind the book.
Douglas2's Comment: "Re: Spiritual warfare:
As a younger adult one of the patterns that I noticed was that whenever I was in a public-facing leadership role of a church or parachurch-ministry, I seemed to become suddenly very attractive to just the sort of woman I found most physically attractive.
As an introverted and socially awkward nerd, this was somewhat disconcerting. And some of the women were quite mercenary and manipulative, so I began to associate being in Christian leadership with always being wary of getting tricked into situations that could generate gossip and disapproval whether or not any impropriety happened. The "Pence rule" made a lot of sense to me when I heard about it.
Of course it could be easily attributed to the difference between being an unnoticeable wallflower and the notice one gets by always being "up front" in the church or organization. But one time, no sooner than I was installed in a position, I received a call out of the blue from a female friend from years before from another country, who said:
"Remember Beth my (hot nympho) roommate? Well she and I had booked a week doing a bicycle-tour of wineries in the Loire-valley with our boyfriends, but she just broke up with hers. I know it is during your university's break, and it's all paid for already. You'd have to share a room and bed with Beth (the hot nympho) – and when I suggested to her that you might be free to join us she said 'Oh, that's a brilliant idea!"
To suggest that's 'spiritual warfare' treads close to suggesting that my friend was in some way an agent of the devil by extending that invitation, which I don't suggest. But it's made me conscious that friends in the public eye are constantly interacting with others who have their own agenda, that there's an emotional cost and mental labor cost associated with navigating that, and that my praying for their wisdom and grace and energy and health and safety is probably more necessary than I think. "
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